How is this pay to win? Do you guys know what pay to win means? You pay to play the game sooner you still have to put in just as much effort as the next guy. Yeah you may be behind if you don’t but you will still need to put in the same amount of physical time to be at the same point as the other guy. Pay to win gives you the reward with no work, I could pay for the early release, not play the game and be at the same spot as a guy who didnt. Other games have pay to win where you get a reward that would otherwise require game time. For example if there’s a game that requires 30 hours gameplay to increase your damage by 5% or $20 to achieve the same thing, THATS pay to win. This is just early access. Learn the difference
By your definition, being 1 month ahead in a monthly subscription IS a pay wall.
Still, a pay wall has no inherent “win”. Crossing a finishing line first is not winning unless there is some achievement attached.
Unless you are saying Blizzard should add achievements to Classic
The payment could be server locked… you pay for the highest tier you get access to the first round of servers. Pay a little less get access to the second round of servers. Exc.
No more pay to win. If you choose to roll on a server that has been open already you don’t pay. This way they can stager the launch and also partially monetize the game. I would not like to not make it into the first round of servers but I can see the merit of something like this. Remember that Vanilla launched with only 40 servers and less than 250,000 players. Classic will have at a minimum 1,000,000 players there just for classic. not to mention all of the retail tourists.
If early access is 15 bucks then no, it’s not PTW.
If it’s additional on top of the sub then yes it is.
EA is notorious within the gaming community as a blatant cash grab that encourages developers to skimp on quality and release unfinished games. Ironically enough, this is true for both EA the company and EA as short for early access.
are you paying extra ontop of the sub fee? pay to win.
if you’re just paying the sub fee then it’s not pay to win, it’s not even early access.
are you paying extra for an advantage? yes. you are. therefore it is pay to win.
It is not an advantage if it is access by servers. People who buy into round 1 are limited to round one servers. People who buy into round 2 are limited to round two servers. I don’t like it but I can understand the thought process of an EA staggered launch and how that will lower the potential stress of the launch. It will also mitigate the number of LookieLou’s
I wish we had to pay for Classic Access for at least 6 months.
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No no no you aren’t getting an advantage, you are getting early access. Those are two different things. You don’t have anymore of an advantage leveling than someone who doesn’t. You still have to put in the effort and time to achieve the same thing.
except you know. the early access. thus the advantage.
do you get to level before others?
yes you do.
therefore it’s an advantage.
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That’s a subjective opinion. I don’t see it as an advantage at all because there’s still effort involved in achieving those levels. It’s still going to take player A and player B the same amount of time to hit max level. Player A isn’t getting something extra. You have to accept that. I’ll use private servers as an example of what pay to win really is.
There are a lot of private servers that allow you to donate. And with these donations you can get items like shadowmourne and full season 8 gear. I can put in literally 0 effort and be months ahead of people who have been playing the game for years without actually touching the game. THATS pay to win. This is pay for early access.
How is it an advantage if you are not playing on the same server as those people you leveled before…
The first 240,000 players to start WoW were P2Wing over the others who joined later…
are you paying something extra or are you not? yes you are. that is the entire concept of pay to win.
no, because those 240k didn’t get early access. they just happened to get lucky and get the first copies before it sold out.
they did not pay extra.
they did not get access before the game went live.
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Let’s look at it from a different approach. Would blizzard release the game early for people who pay EA or release it later for people who don’t? Presumably the former right?
Based on Blizzard’s recent track record, an early access model would likely be sold through pre-ordering. If people pre-order, they get to play earlier. That is the most likely thing to happen if an early access option were to exist. Why do I say this, where’s my proof?
Alternatively, they can do two things. First, they can simply open the game as it is released for sale but label the first few weeks as “early access”. They will have to charge more to get any benefit from this obviously as otherwise it would literally be the same as just selling the regular version and everyone will just buy it as is. The final option would be simply to provide a first come first serve payment model where the first x number of players who pay get in first.
Can you see why all these approaches would be a bad idea? Either Blizzard prematurely releases their game and markets it as “early access” for an extra price, releases their game later for people who refuse to pay extra, or provides exclusive benefits to people who are the first to click the “submit payment” button.
Early access doesn’t not equate to leveling first. That’s just you filling in the blanks. Someone could play the early access time period and stop once the game launches.
That and… No, hitting max level 1st does not mean you are winning. The only way you can draw that conclusion is “Keeping up with the Jones” mentality.
Those max level characters can not stop you from becoming max level. They can not stop you from gearing. They can not stop you from gaining gold and resources.
Either way: if they game is ready for early access, it’s ready for launch.
Launch the game.
no, but it distinctly gives them an advantage others do not have.
pay to win doesn’t mean strictly winning. its more like pay to have an advantage.
and that is very much true for having early access.
Your premise falls apart here.
- There is no “others do not have”
This is no different than someone subscribing and paying to play a month after launch then claiming everyone that played since launch is paying to win.
- P2W does strictly mean PAY 2 WIN
Those that do not play the early access can and will win. 2 month into launch and people will not remember the early access players.
Pay 2 Win is very specific. It’s the need to pay for something to be competivite. The definition you are attempting to slap on early access would mean ANYTHING after launch is a lost cause. It’s just not true.
I have never believed in early access. I firmly stand by a full wipe for launch. But, this misuse of P2W will always be called out.
that depends. are you talking about just a months sub and thats it? or are you talking about paying extra in addition to the sub for the month?
No you aren’t paying for something extra. If I can pay icecream today or wait until tomorrow and get it for free you aren’t getting anything extra you are just getting icecream. You are just getting it earlier. Honestly a 5 year old understands this sort of stuff idk what your issue is here.